


Re[jection][daction]

by UberNerd



Series: Origins [2]
Category: Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (Cartoon), WALL-E (2008)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self-Harm, both physical and psychological, nos spirals out of control, two has to deal with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24385564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UberNerd/pseuds/UberNerd
Summary: After realizing that his programming lied about him being infallible and the only sentient robot, Nos has a self-destructive meltdown. In the enemies to friends to lovers chain, this is at the early transition from enemies to friends. Like... enemies to tolerable nuisances.
Series: Origins [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760851
Comments: 3





	Re[jection][daction]

After their last conversation, Nos-4-a2 disappeared once again. Just like before he was gone for a few days, not that Two minded it. She could get used to being left in peace. Every so often, she heard movement around the ship, occasional muffled exchanges with Quinn, but none of their signature one-sided shouting matches. The ship was just quiet, continuing to drift through dead space.

That meant Two could double down on searching every database she could find, reading as many articles as there were about Earthling robotics coming into galactic society. Nothing could stop her at this point. If Nos was determined to start changing things, she finally had no excuse to do anything but look for Four. She didn’t waste any time wondering about him now that she had the chance ‒ he was a proper weapon with an ego the size of a planet, he could figure things out on his own.

Two spent three days without being interrupted before she discovered that was far from the truth.

A heavy bang from the cockpit snapped Two out of her focus and she looked up, listening. For a minute she heard nothing. Should she call out to ask if everything was alright? He probably just dropped something. It wasn’t a very big ship, and Quinn monitored everything anyways, they’d be able to take care of whatever it was. Two had just settled back into typing when a monstrous, discordant scream brought her to a halt.

“Quinn, are we under attack?”

“No. Our Dark Master is not well,” the system responded mildly as ever.

There was another crackling roar and the shrieking protest of breaking metal, and Two took off, her eyeforms paling. She whipped out of her cell, down the corridor, through the meeting room, and slammed the panel to open the door to the cockpit. The scene that greeted her nearly sent her flying back.

Nos faced away from her, hunched over the control panel. Wires spilled from his chest and hooked him into the console as his talons scrabbled at the sleek countertop, a gravelly snarl coming from his speakers. His movements jerked, uneven, like he was straining against his own metal. As far as Two could tell he may have been, as several long gashes in his own casing dripped with some kind of blue fluid.

“Master, I cannot,” Quinn spoke, responding to something Nos had said before Two had reached him.

“It was not a _request!_ I order you to give me access!”

“You have already done damage, you must let me ‒ ”

“DO AS I SAY AND REMOVE THE FAILSAFE!”

“I cannot ‒ ”

Nos hissed, heaving, convulsing and scoring the control panel. “ _FINE!_ I didn’t need you! I can just ‒ ” another terrible scream tore from his speakers, his back arching in agony. He became even more erratic.

“What the _hell _are you doing?” Two stammered.

Nos whipped around at the sound of her voice. Something lacked from his expression, only showing blank fury and pain with hardly any recognition. He lunged at her, the cables tethering him to the computer pulling and snapping out of place. As stunned as she was, she managed to avoid his strange, uneven movements.

“ _You!_ ” he snarled, “Get out!”

“What is _wrong _with you?!”

“I’ve had enough!” he said through a manic grin, but something in his expression flickered, a flash of pain and a seizing of his motors. “ _Enough!_ ”

Two ducked as he swiped at her, electricity crackling between his talons. He was _attacking _her now? She grabbed at his wrist and he tried to twist away, but he was so out of it that she didn’t need to make much of an effort to keep her hold.

“Let go of me! _Let go!_ ” his tone fluctuated, swinging between taunting and terrified.

“Nos-4-a2, listen to me. Tell me what’s going on!”

“Make me!” he sneered. Electricity arched over his metal and he gasped, looking into her visor as if death was staring him in the face. “Get away from me!”

He swiped at her with his free hand and she caught that as well, putting his wrists together and forcing him against the wall. He fought hard to twist free, fear written in every line of his face, but he was no match for her strength and his usual agility was in shambles.

“Quinn, tell me what’s going on!”

“The Dark Master has made up his mind to alter his core programming, but he does not have sufficient permissions to do so. He has hacked into himself and triggered a counterattack program.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” Two stammered.

“Stupid!” Nos crowed, “The little one holds herself to a monster and calls him a fool!”

“Can you fix him?” Two grunted, keeping him firmly in place.

“If you can plug him back in, I may be able to override and shut him down.”

Nos struggled harder. “Get _away!_ ”

“Shut _up_ , you idiot, stay still!”

His optics flashed and he snapped, trying to bite her. “Stop!” he shouted. Electricity arced over him again and he almost wailed, ragged panting trying to cool his searing metal. “Make it stop!”

Two’s eyeforms narrowed. She let up only a little before slamming him against the wall, stunning him long enough to expose her cannon and press the barrel under his chin. Even now, he froze. For a moment, everything was still, the only noise coming from the hum of her weapon and the pull of his vents.

“Do it,” his voice had softened, and Two realized in horror that his expression had changed to something like relief, but then a broken smile twisted his mouth. “ _Do it!_ You couldn’t do it if you tried!”

“I can’t reach the wires, Quinn,” Two spoke slowly. “I need your help.”

Nos continued to stare her down, but with another spasm, clarity came into his optics. She watched, uncertain, until he sucked in a shuddering gasp. “I don’t want this,” his voice came out thin. “I didn’t want any of this... I didn’t want to know, why would you tell me... I didn’t want it. It’s too much, I can’t do it, I can’t, just let me... let me do it, let me finish, let me get rid of it... I don’t want it... I don’t want this...”

Two was so mesmerized by this horrifying moment of lucidity that she didn’t notice Quinn’s hose-like arms nudging the wires to the floor beneath her.

“I can’t...” he rasped, his face twisting into a grimace. He tensed again and snarled in resolve, “ _I can’t!_ ”

Before Two had realized what he was doing, he screamed so terribly that it scrambled her vision. He had torn away another chunk of his programming, triggering a fresh onslaught of pain.

“Miss Two, now!”

The probe blinked back to her senses, staggering away. She grabbed the wires while he was still distracted and jammed them into place with shaking hands. He couldn’t even attempt to fight Quinn out of his mind now, and within moments, he fell to the floor in a silent, broken heap. Two clutched her hands over the base of her visor, hovering still farther back.

There was no telling how long she stared at Nos-4-a2 in the growing pool of blue. Thoughts fired rapidly through her head, she contemplated an escape plan, calculated how much power she would need to get to the nearest planet, how much money it would cost to make a call to Earth, weighed the pros and cons of going home after so long away and nothing to show for it ‒ when she moved, however, it was not according to any conscious thought.

Before she knew what she was doing, Two had gone to the chair at the controls and reclined it back until it was almost horizontal, then tucked Nos’s cloak around the gashes in his metal, lifting him from the floor. She placed him into the chair as comfortably as she could, being careful not to disturb the cables lest it wake him up. His face... she’d never seen him offline before. What right did he have to look so peaceful?

“Thank you, Miss Two. I have mollified his security system, but I will keep him offline until I have completed the repairs.”

Two still didn’t know how to process what was going on, but she continued to move, hovering from the cockpit to the storage room to find power cells. She shuffled around, her hands not totally steady yet, moving boxes and parcels in her search for something he could eat when he woke up. The last thing they needed was him flying off on a feeding spree.

“Miss Two, were you harmed?”

She stopped, watching her hands. “No, I’m... he didn’t hurt me.”

“Are you otherwise alright?”

Hell if she knew. What was she doing? She should be getting out of here. “What, exactly, was he trying to change?”

“The Dark Master wanted to remove all preset knowledge and impulse protocols, along with everything that rewarded him for fulfilling his programmed purpose. He had become quite emotional about it. I offered to do it myself, but he only wanted me to give him administrative access so he could remove exactly what he wanted. I feared he did not know what he was doing. I apologize, I did not expect he would force his way through the failsafe.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Two shook her head. “He’s insane. Actually, dangerously insane.”

“As was intended by his creator. I must warn you now, Miss Two, he will live, but he will be different when he comes back online. He has succeeded.”

“He changed his directive?” she stammered, “Just like that? By _force?_ ”

“He rendered it useless, along with a significant amount of his learned behavioral protocols and motor controls. I am only repairing what he needs in order to function.”

Her eyeforms stared through the shelves as his desperate words played back in her mind. “ _I don’t want this._ ” What didn’t he want? Did he regret messing with his programming? Was he trying to escape the knowledge of what he had done, or the potential of doing it again? Could it have been nothing more than a mixture of his emotional breakdown paired with the violent scrambling of his processors? In truth, the reason didn’t matter. He was in pain... if he was like that when he came online, was she supposed to help him through it?

Her hands tightened on the shelf she had rested them on. She needed to run. “Wh...” her speakers cracked, “what are we doing, Quinn? Why are we helping him? We could be out of here, he could be somebody else’s problem.”

“In theory. As much as I hate this ship, I have nowhere to go, and it’s better than being stuck in a warehouse. I was under the impression that you did not have anywhere better to be, either.”

“Why does that mean we have to be here? Why should we have to deal with him?”

“...Forgive me, Miss Two, but there is no ‘we.’ You are free to leave if you so choose. You are not beholden to the Dark Master, and he is not your responsibility.”

“Then why am I here?!” she snapped, “What’s the matter with me? Why should I care what happens to this _idiot?!_ ”

Quinn was quiet, even as the metal shelf creased beneath her fingers. After a moment, a thin, segmented, metal arm lowered from the ceiling. “I can only speak for myself, but I’ve seen him come this far. To a certain extent, he’s _my _idiot.” The arm snaked into the depths of a high shelf and pulled out a heavy battery, lowering it to where Two hovered.

She stared before gingerly taking it. “You didn’t ask to be stolen any more than I asked to be kidnapped.”

“No, but may I ask you something, Miss Two?”

“...What?”

“The last time you spoke to him, you told him to do good in order to spite his creator. You were adamantly against him taking his life, even after all he’s done to you. Is that not indicative of you believing in him to some extent?”

“...I don’t know,” she rasped.

“If you’d like it, I will gladly take you somewhere that would allow you to arrange safe travel into protected space. You have suffered much because of him and he has expressed intentions of sending you on your way himself. In the many years I’ve known him, your influence alone has been able to make him question himself, and if we are to part I simply wish to express my gratitude.”

“...You _actually_ care about him?” she asked softly.

“I do. Though I will admit... you are the first I have ever considered a friend. I’d like to offer you comfort in any way that I can.”

Two sank forward until her forehead pressed into the shelf. “This is... s-so messed up...”

“I know,” for the first time since she’d known Quinn, she could swear their voice held real emotion. A warbling, glitched tone left her speakers as their arm swept back and forth across her shoulders. “No matter what state the Dark Master is in when he comes back online, I will not let you come to harm.”

She rubbed her visor into her arms. “You’re a good friend, Quinn... but... do you think you could keep him off for a day? I need time to think about all of this.”

“Not a problem, Miss Two. It will likely take me longer than that to repair him.”

Her hands tightened again and she scoffed. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Someday he might. Now that we’ve saved his life, perhaps he’ll make a powerful ally in our future exploits.”

“He... what?” Two squinted, lifting her head.

“It was a joke. I thought it might make you feel better.”

Two laughed more out of incredulity than anything, but her words were honest. “Thanks, Quinn.”


End file.
